Caregiver Touch-Speech Communication and Infant Responses in 12-Month-Olds at High Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Girija Kadlaskar, Amanda Seidl, Helen Tager-Flusberg and 2 others
PMID 31754946WHAT IT FOUND
At 12 months, high-risk infants received similar amounts of touch plus speech as low-risk infants, but more of their touch overlapped with speech.
Both groups looked toward the touch more when speech was present; high-risk infants often did not respond to touch alone.
Key findings
01Caregivers of high-risk infants had a greater percentage of touch duration overlapping with speech (42.4%) than caregivers of low-risk infants (34.6%), but the percentage of touch plus speech bouts was similar (79% and 75%).
02For both groups, touch plus speech bouts were followed by more touch-related shifts (36%) than touch-only bouts (21%), and the groups did not differ.
03High-risk infants showed no-shift responses more often after touch-only bouts (48%) than low-risk infants (25%), but not after touch plus speech bouts (29% and 30%).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample was small (58 dyads), and three infants with fewer than five touch bouts were excluded from responsivity analyses. Most mothers were university graduates and families were higher income, so results may not apply to more diverse families. The study did not follow infants to see which high-risk infants later received an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis, so it cannot say what predicts later outcome. All touch types were combined, so it cannot distinguish communicative touches from supportive or other touches. The study did not compare touch plus speech with speech-only input. The touch frequency difference was marginal (p = .08), and several infant-response analyses were exploratory.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflict of interest, and no funding source is reported in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that pairing touch with speech improves communication or lowers autism risk. This was an observational free-play study, not a randomized intervention; many infant-response analyses were exploratory, and the study did not follow infants to later diagnosis.